1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for vending a selected item to a customer from a vending machine, and particularly, a method and apparatus for vending items such as video cassettes.
2. Description of the Prior Art
As home video cassette players have become more popular, a need has arisen to provide prerecorded video cassettes for home viewing. Such video cassettes can be purchased or rented from selected stores. In addition, various arrangements have been proposed for allowing a consumer to select and either purchase or rent a video cassette from an unattended terminal. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,414,467 to Gould et al. discloses a vending machine which dispenses a selected video cassette to a customer. After viewing, the video cassette can be returned to the vending machine. A similar machine is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,300,040 to Gould et al.
However, such arrangements have disadvantages which reduce the efficiency of their operation and require frequent attention from trained service people.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for dispensing selected items such as video cassettes which is efficient in operation and which does not require frequent attention by trained service people.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims.